Happy Halloween. It’s one of my favorite holidays (skeletons, blood, walking dead- what’s not to like?). I’ve been thinking a lot about vampires, and how the vampire myth originated.
As a refresher, vampires are creatures that prey on humans and drink their blood. Usually described as undead (that is, come back from the dead), they are pale, cannot stand sunlight and thus are nocturnal, are repelled by garlic, have foul breath, spread their vampire-ism by biting, and have fangs. Similar creatures are described in folklore as far back as Ancient Greece, and many cultures have beliefs about these blood-sucking creatures in various forms. Vampires continue to be popular across the centuries. Just think of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1897), Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula in the 1931 horror film classic Dracula, Anne Rice’s 1976 novel, Interview with a Vampire (and the very sexy movie starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Twilight series.
The vampire myth really took off in the early 1700s, especially in Eastern Europe. In fact, the time period 1725-1755 was called “The Great Vampire Epidemic” in Eastern Europe. This widespread panic is usually attributed to Petar Blagojevich, in Serbia in 1725. After he died and was buried, nine other villagers nearby suddenly died. He was believed to have returned as a vampire and killed them. The villagers demanded he be exhumed. Astonishingly, his body was not decomposed, and there was blood in his mouth, so the villagers drove a stake through his heart and burned the body. A newspaper article about this affair was widely published and hysteria ensued. As Voltaire said, “Vampires were the sole matter of conversation between 1730 and 1735.”
Is there a medical basis for these mysterious, terrifying beings? Many researchers believe so. I’d like to propose four diseases, common in the 1700-1800s that may have paved the way for the burgeoning belief in vampires.
In 1998, Dr. J. Gómez-Alonso, a Spanish neurologist, published his intriguing theory in the medical journal Neurology, proposing that rabies was the root of the vampire myth. Rabies has been described for centuries, always deeply feared and associated with madness. It is almost always fatal; there are only a handful of reported cases of survivors. Caused by the lyssavirus, rabies is transmitted through direct contact with saliva from the infected animal. It just so happens that there was a rabies epidemic in dogs, wolves, and other wild animals in Hungary in the 1720s — the very time and place where the vampire legend appears to have taken root. Long before people understood the germ theory of disease, they understood that the bite of a mad animal could transfer madness. In the initial stages, people developing rabies are restless, agitated, confused, violent, hallucinate, and exhibit very abnormal behavior. Insomnia (and thus night wandering) happens in preliminary stages of rabies. People who are ill with rabies are typically aggressive and often try to bite others. They also may foam at the mouth. People suffering from rabies become averse to strong stimuli like bright lights (sunlight), and strong odors (garlic). They are easily hyper stimulated and may have muscle spasms; the face can become contorted with lips curled back to show their teeth. Additionally, many myths describe vampires as hypersexual and lascivious. Rabies affects (among other things) the limbic system of the brain, which controls emotions and behaviors. Disruption of the limbic system can lead to lustful behavior. Additionally, some men with rabies develop priapism (prolonged erections). As this terrible infection progresses and affects more and more of the nervous system, seizures develop, followed by coma and death. It’s not too much of a leap to think that the symptoms of rabies and its associated madness could lead to a belief in vampires.
Porphyria is another medical condition that may explain some of the features of vampires. Porphyria symptoms were described as far back as Hippocrates, but the mechanism of the illness was not understood until the late 1800s. It is a genetic blood disorder in which the production of hemoglobin is disrupted. Red blood cells contain hemoglobin; that’s what gives them their oxygen-carrying capacity. The manufacture of hemoglobin in the body is a complex process and goes through many steps. I think of it like an egg, caterpillar, cocoon and then butterfly. If one stage is missing, progress stops. With porphyria, the enzyme to help the molecule go from one stage to another is deficient, so one of the precursor molecules (the protoporphyrin) builds up in red blood cells. Too many cocoons, not enough butterflies. The protoporphyrin absorbs the same wavelengths of light that sunburn us, and creates a tremendously painful sun sensitivity. So, people with porphyria are exquisitely sensitive to sunlight. They may also have excessive hair growth in sun-exposed skin, and intermittently have brown or red urine. How do these symptoms relate to vampires? Of course, vampires are nocturnal and find the sun’s light painful. The red urine fed superstitions about drinking the blood of others. Additionally, repeated attacks of porphyria can lead to facial disfigurement and cause gums to recede, leading to a “fanged” appearance.
There are more contenders for illnesses that caused “vampire” symptoms. Pellagra, a condition caused by deficiency of Vitamin B3 (Niacin) and tryptophan (which the body uses to make niacin), can occur when diets are deficient in meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and where corn is the dominant food crop. First described in Spain in 1735, it was endemic in Italy by 1880. The symptoms of pellagra include a noticeable foul breath, finding bright lights painful and annoying, odor intolerance causing nausea and vomiting, dizziness after sudden movements, restlessness, a quarrelsome temperament, emotional disturbances, aggression, insomnia. There is also a distinctive rash around the collar. Is it too far a stretch to see this blistered skin exactly where a crucifix is ordinarily worn as proof of something unholy?
Then there’s the wide-spread Tuberculosis. Also called consumption (because the body wasted away as if it was being consumed from within, or was having the life sucked out by a supernatural creature), it ran rampant in the 1700-1800s. In the early 1800s, Rhode Island was the “Vampire Capital of America”, with many people wasting away from what was believed to be vampire-associated illnesses. In 1892, Mercy Brown of Exeter, Rhode Island, died of tuberculosis. Her brother Edwin developed symptoms of TB two months later. Their mother and sister had also died of TB two years earlier. The good people of Exeter were suspicious there was a vampire at work. The whole family was exhumed, and Mercy’s body didn’t look very decomposed. Sure that she was the vampire doing all the killing, they removed her heart, burned it, and fed the ashes to Edwin (the standard cure for vampirism). He still died of tuberculosis shortly thereafter. It wasn’t long after that that Robert Koch discovered the bacteria causing tuberculosis, and the TB-associated vampire-prevention rituals in New England ended.
So now you know. Those fearsome (or alluring) vampires probably just have some dreadful untreated infection or vitamin deficiency and don’t really want your blood. Enjoy your Halloween!